5 ms·

I find it disturbing that as a non-US citizen, US restricts my access to these sites.

k-mcgrady 15y ago
The FBI is allowed to seize domains which are US based (e.g. dot com). If you setup your site with a domain from another country (e.g. dot co dot uk) the FBI can do nothing. From what I have head they want SOPA to fix that by allowing them to block the domains they can't seize from being viewed within the US via a system like the one China uses. So if you set up your site right the US government cannot stop anyone outside the US from viewing it.
- dangrossman 15y ago
  This isn't the FBI, it's customs enforcement (which was moved under DHS).
  - k-mcgrady 15y ago
    Thanks for clarifying. I thought the notices had FBI on them, my mistake.
RyanKearney 15y ago
What's even more frustrating is that out of the 10 random sites I picked from the list, every single one of them had whois information linking back to China. In order to stop 99.999% of all copyright infringing sites, all US ISP's need to do is block every /8 allocated to APNIC (and a few /16's they have too I believe). Nearly every single brute force attempt on my server is from, you guessed it, China. China contributes nothing but trojans, viruses, and headaches to the rest of the internet. They already have the "great firewall of China" so why not just completely detach China from the rest of the internet as we know it. China will no longer have to operate a firewall (or more of a glorified content filter) and people in the rest of the world will be slightly more safe. I've already blocked every IP block here[1] with iptables and I suggest others follow suit. [1] http://www.apnic.net/publications/research-and-insights/ip-address-trends/min-prefix http://www.apnic.net/publications/research-and-insights/ip-a...
gwright 15y ago
Yet another example of why generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are a bad idea. Country code domains align domain ownership with legal jurisdictions while gTLDs create jurisdictional conflicts.
- nkassis 15y ago
  Well that's one way to look at it, the other way, and the one I favor, is that the internet is a global thing and thus shouldn't be ruled by multiple incompatible jurisdictions.
  - shinratdr 15y ago
    The internet as a concept may be, but your site isn't. It's located in a physical server somewhere, in a country with laws that regard the internet. I like his suggestion, and he is right. Nobody would dispute who gets to set the rules for .us or .ca, but the rules for .com and any TLD regarded as international are much muddier. Only having country TLDs would remove that ambiguity. Doesn't matter where the servers are hosted, you are under the jurisdiction of the TLD you choose to use.
    - JoshTriplett 15y ago
      > The internet as a concept may be, but your site isn't. It's located in a physical server somewhere, in a country with laws that regard the internet. And if anyone can figure out what server corresponds to what site, we haven't done enough work to protect anonymity on the Internet. > I like his suggestion, and he is right. Nobody would dispute who gets to set the rules for .us or .ca, but the rules for .com and any TLD regarded as international are much muddier. Only having country TLDs would remove that ambiguity. Doesn't matter where the servers are hosted, you are under the jurisdiction of the TLD you choose to use. "Regarded as international" or not, .com .net and .org get administered by US entities. TLDs "regarded as international" has about as much meaning as Internet sites "regarded as independent from country-specific regulation": namely, none unless we take steps to make it that way.

The FBI is allowed to seize domains which are US based (e.g. dot com). If you setup your site with a domain from another country (e.g. dot co dot uk) the FBI can do nothing. From what I have head they want SOPA to fix that by allowing them to block the domains they can't seize from being viewed within the US via a system like the one China uses. So if you set up your site right the US government cannot stop anyone outside the US from viewing it.

dangrossman 15y ago
This isn't the FBI, it's customs enforcement (which was moved under DHS).
- k-mcgrady 15y ago
  Thanks for clarifying. I thought the notices had FBI on them, my mistake.

RyanKearney 15y ago

What's even more frustrating is that out of the 10 random sites I picked from the list, every single one of them had whois information linking back to China. In order to stop 99.999% of all copyright infringing sites, all US ISP's need to do is block every /8 allocated to APNIC (and a few /16's they have too I believe). Nearly every single brute force attempt on my server is from, you guessed it, China. China contributes nothing but trojans, viruses, and headaches to the rest of the internet. They already have the "great firewall of China" so why not just completely detach China from the rest of the internet as we know it. China will no longer have to operate a firewall (or more of a glorified content filter) and people in the rest of the world will be slightly more safe. I've already blocked every IP block here[1] with iptables and I suggest others follow suit. [1] http://www.apnic.net/publications/research-and-insights/ip-address-trends/min-prefix http://www.apnic.net/publications/research-and-insights/ip-a...

gwright 15y ago

Yet another example of why generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are a bad idea. Country code domains align domain ownership with legal jurisdictions while gTLDs create jurisdictional conflicts.

nkassis 15y ago
Well that's one way to look at it, the other way, and the one I favor, is that the internet is a global thing and thus shouldn't be ruled by multiple incompatible jurisdictions.
- shinratdr 15y ago
  The internet as a concept may be, but your site isn't. It's located in a physical server somewhere, in a country with laws that regard the internet. I like his suggestion, and he is right. Nobody would dispute who gets to set the rules for .us or .ca, but the rules for .com and any TLD regarded as international are much muddier. Only having country TLDs would remove that ambiguity. Doesn't matter where the servers are hosted, you are under the jurisdiction of the TLD you choose to use.
  - JoshTriplett 15y ago
    > The internet as a concept may be, but your site isn't. It's located in a physical server somewhere, in a country with laws that regard the internet. And if anyone can figure out what server corresponds to what site, we haven't done enough work to protect anonymity on the Internet. > I like his suggestion, and he is right. Nobody would dispute who gets to set the rules for .us or .ca, but the rules for .com and any TLD regarded as international are much muddier. Only having country TLDs would remove that ambiguity. Doesn't matter where the servers are hosted, you are under the jurisdiction of the TLD you choose to use. "Regarded as international" or not, .com .net and .org get administered by US entities. TLDs "regarded as international" has about as much meaning as Internet sites "regarded as independent from country-specific regulation": namely, none unless we take steps to make it that way.